Friend overdosed. Wtf to do?

[Littlefluffyclouds81]

My friend/neighbour has not been answering her phone all day and I just went to check on her. She's had a bit of a shit time of it lately so I was worried.

Found her in bed (I've got a key). She's taken 15 tramadol last night. She was trying to end it. She is conscious and pissed off that she's still here. Her head is hurting and she's feeling sick. I said she needs to go to hospital but she got really angry and said she will never forgive me if I call an ambulance. She said if she still feels bad tomorrow she'll go then.

I guess if she was going to die that would have happened by now but I'm worried she could have caused herself some serious damage. I've taken all the pills I can find in the house away from her and said I'll be back to check on her once dd2 is in bed. I really think she needs to get checked over but she is not at all happy with that suggestion. What should I do?

She's actively suicidal and made a genuine attempt to die by suicide. I don't think how she chose to go about it is relevant. The risk is ongoing and it sounds like she has a serious ongoing problem as well (Valium, loss of consciousness, and so on). I am utterly staggered this isn't being taken more seriously when OP described someone who was unconscious when she found her, very upset to be alive and is now demonstrating symptoms of overdose having received no medical attention at all. The tramadol can be fatal on its own, and was also potentially taken on a background picture of various other medications, all of which may potentiate the effects. Anyone who says they are suicidal should be taken seriously.

Mind - Getting help for someone in an emergency

OP why are you trusting that she really did only take 15 tramadol, not an extra 20 paracetamol washed down with a litre of gin?

Does your friend have a contact at the local crisis team - they are normally on call through the night (someone on the hotline is anyway). I'd try to speak to someone there and get an opinion on whether she needs urgent psych evaluation, if not physical attention.

gamerchick -whether she could be admitted under the mental health act is not related to the number of tablets she has taken but to her state of mind and degree of risk to herself.

The fact that she wanted to be dead, told no-one and is sorry to find herself alive is concerning.

Tramadol has a very unstable pharmacology... I know because I am allergic to it and I will tell you now the effects take 48hours to be fully worn off... Half life or not.

You need to call an ambulance - sorry but you do.

OP I hope you're still reading the thread.

Please get some help sorted tonight. I know you worry this will cause more problems than it solves but that's not the case. It's safety first, lets get the after effects of the meds sorted and then everything is fixable. Nobody is going to judge you for what you've done or what you do now. Just get things moving so everybody is safe.

The ambulance is on its way.

Well done OP I know that must have been hard, but you've made the right decision to help your friend. It's easy for us to post and say call ambulance but a lot harder in the situation and being there I'm sure.
for you and your friend

Well done OP

good luck OP.

I ODd as a teen and my friend worked out what had happened, she immediately rung my parents who dragged me to A&E - I had a fit in an ambulance when they were transporting me to the other hospital a couple of hours later and ended up in ICU. I've no doubt I'd be dead if my friend hadn't gone against my wishes.

She's pretty upset about going to hospital but she's let me pack a bag for her.

Best of luck to your friend I hope she gets all the help she needs you are a good friend

You're a good friend op.
She needs to go to hospital
As clearly her mental health needs some help.
I wouldn't worry about the tramadol too much, i was going to post what goalie said, you need to take a lot before you do damage.
They have a half life of 7 hours. The effects are noticed within the first hour. She's had no side effects except being sick i'd worry more for her mental health.

The ambulance came, did some basic observations, and told her to make an appointment to see her gp in the morning

As in, they didn't take her with them.

Fucking hell. Mental health care in this country is so shit. I've recently heard of an ambulance refusing to hospitalise one of my friends in florid psychosis because it wasn't serious enough.

The other option is that she exaggerated what she'd done to you and has form for this so the crew didn't take it that seriously.

Seriously? I thought they would have taken her in for the cry for help, even if the dosage wasn't going to harm her!!

Well done for ignoring the hysterical alarmist responses on this thread and using your commonsense, OP.

Unless your friend is allergic to Tramadol, which it would seem is unlikely, 15 x 50mg of this particular drug won't cause death or liver failure and some regularly take this amount for the extended 'high', or feeling of tranquility, it produces.

Nevertheless, your friend needs help to break what seems to be an established cycle of taking a shitload of pills in response to something shitty happening with her divorce, but whether she will receive ongoing support following this latest incident remains to be seen as, after her vitals have been checked, she'll most probably be left to sleep it off in A&E before being discharged after a cursory evaluation from whoever's on duty on the pysch ward.

I suspect that she'll refuse the suggestion of a follow-up appointment and, as this is likely to be the first recorded incident of a 'suicide attempt' on her part, she'll be back to her usual 'cheery self' later today until, as you say, the next time and I don't envy you having the onerous responsibility of feeling that you have to be alert to her moods or keep up to speed with developments in her divorce proceedings in order to anticipate what she might do.

That's definitely not the case bill. I've known her a while and she is not one for getting help, she is great at looking after other people but neglects herself. I was pretty confused that they seemed to think she'd be alright. I was with her and she gave them an honest account of what she'd taken (including the bottle of wine), and the reasons she felt she needed to do that.

In bed now. What a night.

Thanks goddess. I do worry about that as to be honest the divorce is only just getting going, the worst is definitely yet to come. And I'm not in a great place mentally myself, I had a bit of a breakdown a couple of weeks ago and I feel quite fragile at the moment. It's not nice knowing that if she does it again it WILL be me that finds her, I could have been walking in to find her dead tonight, I'd never get over that.

My need to fire up the Lavazza caused my response at 02.23 to crosspost with your earlier update, fluffy.

I'm unsurprised that the paramedics determined that your friend was not in need of hospitalisation and if some of the armchair doctors here did a stint on A&E they'd rapidly learn not to make a large screen technicolour drama out of a very minor crisis.

I suggest you have a very serious talk with your friend later today about the effect tonight's events have had on you, and advise her to seek counselling via her GP before she manages to do away with herself simply because she craved the blessed relief that sleep can bring when life's problems get too much for us.

Remind her that if she pops her clogs prior to the Absolute being decreed, there'll only be one winner and she needn't think that she'll be able to haunt him until it's his turn to shrug off this mortal coil. I also suggest you refer her to the Relationships board where there'll be no shortage of hands to hold hers at any hour of the day or night, and where women who've been through worse what she's contending with will provide sound advice that will see her through whatever her stbxh chucks at her.

While I'm in the business of 'suggesting', get yourself along to your own GP for a little help in the form of a short course of ads or sleeps and/or offload whatever issues have caused you to temporarily implode on what you consider to be the most appropriate board on this site.

Quite apart from your current 'fragile' state, you've had a dreadful shock that warrants being very kind to yourself until you've recovered your equilibrium - stay warm, make tasty treats for yourself or cook comfort food, eat little and often, and be sure to keep hydrated throughout the day.

I hope your friend can see how very unfair she's being/been to you but, if not, please know that in the event that you are unable to 'save' her from herself it will be because there was nothing you could have done as it was her time to go. Seriously, fluffy - when your number's up no-one on this earth has the power to recall it and no-one should beat themselves up for that fact of life, or death as the case may be.

If you find it is getting too much for you, please don't have any compunction about returning you friend's key to her as you've already gone the extra mile and you were not put on this earth to be her keeper.

Yet again 111 give the right advice which is overridden by people on the Internet

Let's hope she doesn't die or end up with liver damage since the "paramedics" said she was fine to just see a GP hours later.

I'm unsurprised that the paramedics determined that your friend was not in need of hospitalisation and if some of the armchair doctors here did a stint on A&E they'd rapidly learn not to make a large screen technicolour drama out of a very minor crisis.

This.

And yy Ubik

How is taking an overdose a minor crisis?